Weeks 17-20: Castles, Oceans, Grasslands, and SNOW!!

I've been dying to update this blog, but life has just gotten in the way. I can't even comprehend that we are past the halfway point of the year. I feel like we just started school yesterday! Nevertheless, the weeks march on. Here is a quick summary of what we have been up to this past month...

Germany and Rivers....

We ended our time in Europe with a focus on Germany; did you know that there are tens of thousands of castles in that country? I've been trying to give Harry more experience with using the Internet to do research, so he investigated a number of websites and chose his favorite German castle, pictured here. We have added it to our "things to see one day if we ever make it to Europe" list!

Burg Eltz Castle: I think Harry chose this because it looks like Hogwarts!

Harry also did a unit on rivers and lakes, which included building a model of a river and learning about surface tension in science. See if you can get a paper clip to float in a glass of water!

It's harder than it looks to do! Hint: the little unbent paper clip on the left was a big help!

As for the river model, he used salt dough to make a nice replica of a river bank; we attempted to flow water onto it and freeze it overnight outside to create a frozen river (the boys were so excited to have their Lego minifigures "skate" on the ice!), but alas, that idea did not work. Oh well!

Meanwhile, Ron was doing his own project on a body of water, focusing on the ocean. He painted the background for a mural on ocean creatures, then all the brothers helped out with their own contributions to fill it up. Another fun addition to our wall exhibit of school projects!

I have to admit, art projects are not my forte. But the kids love it so much when the paints come out. So, I'm going to try to be better about giving them more chances for creative expression when I can. This semester in our weekly homeschool co-op, neither of the older boys are taking art, so I feel I need to make more effort on my end!

Africa!
Our continuing trip around the world has now taken us to the continent of Africa, in which we have focused on Kenya in particular, on the ecosystem of the grasslands, and on the related animal inhabitants. Speaking of wall art, the boys added to the previous ocean mural with a safari mural, again involving lots of paint and a group effort:

Harry and Ron also tried their hand at designing African face painting designs, which I tried my best to copy on their actual faces using a mixture of tempera paint and lotion as advised by the book Global Art which we have been using this year. How do you think I did?

I tried to get them to go to go to Costco with those faces but sadly, they declined. =(

Meanwhile, Ron is almost done with Singapore Earlybird math, and also nearly through the end of Ordinary Parents' Guide to Teaching Reading, which has really helped him improve this skill this year. Now he volunteers to read to his younger brother, which I love to see. And he's even started teaching Dobby some basic karate moves!

As for Dobby, I mainly keep him occupied with a rotation of Kumon books in tracing and pasting, and a BrainQuest book for preschoolers. He can handle scissors finally, and is getting closer to writing his own name. Two out of five letters so far!

And of course in the midst of these weeks, we had our very fun Chicago blizzard to enjoy. And enjoy the boys (and their dad!) did!

Thanks for visiting this very belated update! Hopefully I will be able to return and post again before another month goes by! Next week we travel to Asia! Stay tuned...

Weeks 14-16: Doing What I Can...

The weeks fly by! I have been insanely busy since the new year trying to help promotional efforts on my new book (The Missional Mom), which was released on Jan. 1st, so my school blogging has gotten shortchanged! We've been in school two weeks, working around my somewhat erratic schedule, but it looks like the dust has settled somewhat and next week we will have a fairly normal school week! Hallelujah!

We continued in our tour of Europe, focusing on France primarily. Harry tried his hand at constructing a version of the Eiffel Tower using Wiki-Sticks; Ron just did some free art (a tent and a campfire, he says!) We also had fun taking a trip to IHOP and eating crepes and French toast! Not the most authentically French cuisine, I know, but the kids still had fun and enjoyed the food!

We had our first decent snowstorm of the new year, and so one afternoon I surprised the boys with an impromptu snow day, which they loved (as you can see!):

The boys continued making progress in math; Harry is finally almost through the end of Singapore Math 2A and Ron is learning how to count with coins.

Harry and Ron have also used their imaginations to create new superhero characters for themselves. Meet Lightning Man and Red Boy:

The boys were also great helps at my book launch party, greeting those who came in and directing their way.

And to demonstrate that we are just behind in several areas, we made "Christmas Cookies" in January. I should call them Epiphany Cookies or something like that!

Hopefully next week I'll have a more substantive summary to share; right now, we are still trying to just get our bearings straight as we start the new year! Thanks for visiting and hope your year is going well so far!

Happy Holidays/New Year!

Well, I never did get to post about our last week, and nor have I done our semester review. But we did get in a great deal of fun activities in our trip to California over Christmas! Just a few photos...

Wish we could have spent more time at SeaWorld, which was my favorite part of the trip. So many educational things we could have done and seen there! But now we're back home, I'm trying to dig out from a pile of post-travel and post-school rubble, and when I emerge we'll start back with school again. In the meantime, Happy New Year!

(P.S. I've linked this blog to today's Hip Homeschool Hop! Check it out for more links to fun homeschooling blogs!)

Weeks 12 and 13: Lots of Paint!

We are ALMOST done with school for 2010! But we have just a few more days to do next week...we lost a week after Thanksgiving because the teacher (aka, me!) was so sick she could barely function. So, we will do school next week right almost right up to Christmas Eve. As for the past two weeks, here is our update. Not so much detail because I am starting to run out of steam! Thank goodness for a break coming up...

Harry's highlights:

• Started learning the countries of Europe, with a focus on Norway. Did you know there are 450,000 lakes there?
• Finally nearing the end of Singapore Math 2A. He has been cruising through multiplication and has learned his 2x and 3x tables. We're hoping to finish up the book by the end of 2010.
• Has reached Chapter 9 in Latin for Children; he is starting to understand what all those declensions are all about but also finding Latin harder than last year. I miss that Harry is not learning any Latin prayers as he did in Prima Latina, so I may think about re-including elements of Latina Christiana since we are still using ecclesiastical pronunciation.
• Is on "Book 4" of his fantasy/sci-fi "Series of Acroban," 12,000 words total and counting!
• Celebrated with mom when her book arrived, as he was the only non-napping son awake to witness the box opening!

Ron's highlights:

• Getting to the end of Singapore Earlybird B, which means I better order Singapore 1A for him soon!
• Finished forming all his letters in cursive, and writes his name in a lovely script! As for other words...well, we have to keep working on connecting letters into words. A goal for 2011!
• Enjoyed the "turtle" theme in his MFW-K curriculum, which was tied with the idea that "I don't quit, I persevere." Ron made his own turtle to commemorate the unit, and of course his little brother had to follow suit!

• Ron also began attending AWANA and has been really enjoying his Sparks class. He has surprised me with how much he likes memorizing Bible verses so far...hope it continues! His enthusiasm has "sparked" interest in his older brother, who was more cautious and uncertain about the idea, but now Harry will also attend starting in January. Never having gone to or known about AWANA as a child, I think it's great that my kids have the opportunity to get so much exposure to God's Word at a young age. What could be better?

"How does it look?" =)

As for Dobby, I have been feeling a little guilty that I haven't been doing too much intentional "preschool" activities with him. My work with him is all pretty haphazard, yet somehow he seems to be absorbing material around him. For example...

• Using a 100 chart, he can count all the way through it, without having been specifically taught it!
• Can write a number of different letters, including many in his own name. I'm hoping he'll be able to write his actual name out within a few months.
• Enjoys using his Kumon workbooks to practicing skills such as cutting, pasting, and sticking!

Lastly, we ended our week with a fun painting project; Ron also studied the theme "God made us wonderful" this week, so we had everyone paint their own life-sized figure, which all three enjoyed. They've also been enjoying the very little bit of snow we've had here in Chicagoland, just a few inches at one point, but enough to build a snowman!

We'll have one last report of 2010 (I hope!) with our last partial week of school next week. Advent blessings to all!

Week 11: Eggs Are Strong!

This week, I am going to keep our post short and sweet! Let's try a different format...

Harry's highlights: (3rd grade)

• Finished his time in South America; he learned to read bar graphs, conduct research on the ten tallest mountains on the continent, and continued to learn about all manner of flora and fauna in the rainforest
• Progressed in his Singapore Math book with a re-introduction of multiplication and division
• Wrote 1,000 more words in his fantasy novel series, entitled "The Series of Acroban"

Ron's highlights: (K)

• Finished the letter "U" in his cursive handwriting book
• Started doing simple addition and subtraction
• Survived the extraction of one of his baby teeth! (We went out to lunch to celebrate at a local cafe, featuring wonderful ice cream and the little cow below):

Dobby's highlights (Preschool)

• Can spell a number of random words, such as his own name, "GAP" (which makes an appearance on many of his sweatshirts!) and "GUM" (one of his favorite things to chew now that he has learned not to swallow it!)
• Can count past 20
• Can sing melodies of songs his brothers play after hearing them only once or twice

We were focusing on birds this week in science, and did an eggshell experiment to demonstrate how strong eggshells really are. They can hold up many more books than any of us thought! 

Dobby was so inspired by the egg experiment that he built his own tower of books afterwards!

And today marks the last day of homeschool co-op for the semester, as hard as it is to believe! Twelve weeks went by super-fast! Here Harry and Ron pose with their final art projects--Christmas wreaths! Is it really getting that close to the holidays???

Speaking of holidays, have a wonderful Thanksgiving! We will catch up with you next time, when we begin our study of European nations!

Week 10: Getting to Know South America

This week we spent time learning about South America a variety of ways, particularly Harry. Ron, Harry and I have all become much more adept at identifying all the South American countries, and Harry has additionally learned about people groups such as the Yanomami Indians, for whom he has been praying this week, thanks to the wonderful book Window on the World. We're reading the biography of Nate Saint together now as well, although I'm feeling a need to read ahead to see how they handle the tragic end of his life (and whether they cover the amazing story of the reconciliation between Nate's son Steve and the tribesman who ended his father's life.) Feels pretty intense for the ears of little children, so we'll see how the book goes!

The boys also had fun playing soccer together--or, I should say, futbol!--a sport they had rarely enjoyed before, but that they tried given how much soccer is loved in S. America. And they fell in love with it! Now I'm wondering if I should have encouraged them to play soccer all these years. Harry even has a Brazilian soccer shirt given to him by his uncle years ago, and has put it to good use this week!

Harry also continued his study of the tropical rainforest this week, which we started last week and experienced up close in our zoo field trip. This week, Harry created a "Layers of the Rainforest" poster, which gave him a chance to use some of those technology-related skills I mentioned last week. He drew trees, labeled the layers, then researched examples of animals that reside in each layer, and used Google to find images of those animals which he printed out and affixed to his poster. I was surprised by how excited he was to do this project--I thought he would not get into it as much as he did! It makes me think that he is at an age where he can do more multi-step projects on his own, and how I should keep looking for ways to encourage this in his school experience.

The final poster!

Little brothers Ron and Dobby keep busy with their own projects; in addition to his usual activities in handwriting, reading, and math, Ron has focused on the topic of the "nest" this week in his kindergarten curriculum, which reminds him that God takes good care of him. Dobby mainly dabbles in play and likes to pretend to work alongside Sean, which seems pretty fitting for the age!

Currriculum-wise, we have finally settled down into our choices; I decided to continue with the First Language Lessons series for Harry's grammar, since we had invested so much time already in the first book and are used to the style and content. We did switch to Latin for Children but I am stubbornly keeping with the ecclesiastical pronunciation and wondering if that will ultimately feel like a misstep! But it sounds so much nicer to my ear and we still want to keep learning prayers in Latin, so hopefully if my kids do continue long-term with Latin, they will be able to make the switch to the classical pronunciation easily someday. Ron is wading into Latin slowly by using Song School Latin, the CD to which even Dobby enjoys! (I myself have learned many helpful Latin phrases through the cute and singable songs!)

We have one more week before we take a week off for Thanksgiving! How fast the holidays are approaching. Thanks for visiting!